Bow Point Nursery

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Owned by Ken and Pam Wright.

When they bought the land it was a hay field in a transition zone between the foothills and prairies owned by a man who could build anything out of everything. Ken has been there for 25 years, but they only built the house in 2000, and landscaped in 2001. In the last 12 years they have grown a good sized shelterbelt and strong landscaping.

Their motto is "Survival of the Fittest", they grow mostly native plants (seeds collected within 100 km) and they specialize in woody plant material. They collect their seeds themselves in order to provide better quality plant material, many of which are from Porcupine Hills.  

Some of the potted plants

Since they have a nursery on an acreage they don't have access to a well, so the only water available is from rain and any that is paid for and trucked in (expensive). Cisterns are used to capture the water (each holds 7000 gallons) and as much is recirculated as possible. Due to this, they don't irrigate in their fields, only the plant material that has been potted. They generally use about 3000 gallons a week, and that equates to 1" of rainfall in each of the cisterns. Water for spring comes from collected snow on fences and trees; they get all the snow that blows across their neighbors flat land.



 In order to containerize the plants there needs to be access to a large amount of good soil- so they decided to make it. Sawdust, wood chips, compost, and horse manure are the components of the soil they make. One of the neighbours has lots of horses, and they are allowed to dump the horse manure at BPN for free, rather then paying to bring it to the dump. The soil can be made in 6 months, sometimes in 2. Can't make it too hot that the nitrogen burns plant roots. They also work with arborists, who dump wood chips for mulch, cut up logs for firewood, and other mutually beneficial things.



Seedlings for a restoration project

 Money making:
- The obvious plants being sold
- Landscaping
- Mulch (70 yards sold in just 2 weeks in September)
- Wood
- Compost
- Royalties from cultivars of plants they registered
- Other miscellaneous things

While on the tour Ken talked about 2 plants he registered that he receives royalties from. The first is the dwarf poplar. It is 25 years old, propagated by him via cuttings, and lacks all of the issues that our common street tree poplar has. He makes $0.50 on each tree sold, and if it were to become the go-to street tree in Calgary it would bring in around $1 million per year. The second is the Powderface Willow that they make $0.25 per shrub propagated. It is a silver-leaf shrub, doesn't get very tall, and has a very rounded form.
 



Lots and lots of pots

Where the soil is made

Other info:
- Landscapers come for soil material then end up buying plants 

- Use a clean potting mix: light for shipping and barely any weeds 

- Don't use all your seeds in one year, store some for the next year

- Improper planting is the biggest killer of trees
- Picking for reclamation specific job- use GPS so everything is known
- Growing native plants meaning having a predictable and reliable crop

- Dogwood was the first plant that he tried to grow

- Don't do anything to overwinter. Water in and plant close together. If they die they die 

- They are financially stable due to their permaculture ideas
- Demand is always growing for native trees

- Biggest market is the website

- They attend small garden shows
- Labour is the biggest expense with 3 full year employees and 7 seasonal employees
- To get access to the closest water line (private) would be $30 000 just for the rights, before breaking land and putting piping
- Their biggest frustration is people who don't follow through with contracts and intentions (he doesn't take money up front for work, he only gets paid when he knows he's done the work that was promised)




The dwarf poplar

The land is laid out with a permanent row of trees at the bottom of each acre. It has 16 acres of essentially xeriscaped land with a permanent row of trees at the bottom of each acre. The most important part of the business is the soil, the make up, the maintenance, etc. There is lots of clay in their soil, and the top soil is 6" deep. Plants that are grown are not often sold bare root, only if requested. Ken is a fan of root pruning and does it often, then uses many roots for cuttings in a cold frame.

 

The Powderface Willow

To keep up with the maintenance of the nursery they try to weed constantly, especially to prevent water competition. The only weed they spray for is thistles, just because its the only thing that works. Pests aren't much of an issues, and they have found that if you ignore them they tend to go away; they grow native trees that have been dealing with our pests for a long time. As added pest protection they have a deer fence around the property and 2 cats.
















Mulch!




All in all it took them 10 years to get the business up and running to the point of being profitable. If he did it again now he could do it in 4 years. They generally have very few frustrations, enjoy their work, and they can even afford to take a few weeks in winter off.